Yiddish Tales/S. Libin (Israel Hurewitz)/Slack Times They Sleep

 

SLACK TIMES THEY SLEEP

Despite the fact of the winter nights being long and dark as the Jewish exile, the Breklins go to bed at dusk.

But you may as well know that when it is dusk outside in the street, the Breklins are already "way on" in the night, because they live in a basement, separated from the rest of the world by an air-shaft, and when the sun gathers his beams round him before setting, the first to be summoned are those down the Breklins' shaft, because of the time required for them to struggle out again.

The same thing in the morning, only reversed. People don't usually get up, if they can help it, before it is really light, and so it comes to pass that when other people have left their beds, and are going about their business, the Breklins are still asleep and making the long, long night longer yet.

If you ask me, "How is it they don't wear their sides out with lying in bed?" I shall reply: They do rise with aching sides, and if you say, "How can people be so lazy?" I can tell you, They don't do it out of laziness, and they lie awake a great part of the time.

What's the good of lying in bed if one isn't asleep?

There you have it in a nutshell it's a question of the economic conditions. The Breklins are very poor, their life is a never-ending struggle with poverty, and they have come to the conclusion that the cheapest way of waging it, and especially in winter, is to lie in 378 S. LIBIN

bed under a great heap of old clothes and rags of every description.

Breklin is a house-painter, and from Christmas to Purim (I beg to distinguish!) work is dreadfully slack. When you're not earning a crooked penny, what are you to do?

In the first place, you must live on "cash," that is, on the few dollars scraped together and put by during the "season," and in the second place, you must cut down your domestic expenses, otherwise the money won't hold out, and then you might as well keep your teeth in a drawer.

But you may neither eat nor drink, nor live at all to mention if it's winter, the money goes all the same: it's bitterly cold, and you can't do without the stove, and the nights are long, and you want a lamp.

And the Breklins saw that their money would not hold out till Purim that their Fast of Esther would be too long. Coal was beyond them, and kerosene as dear as wine, and yet how could they possibly spend less? How could they do without a fire when it was so cold? Without a lamp when it was so dark? And the Breklins had an " idea " !

Why sit up at night and watch the stove and the lamp burning away their money, when they might get into bed, bury themselves in rags, and defy both poverty and cold? There is nothing in particular to do, anyhow. What should there be, a long winter even- ing through? Nothing! They only sat and poured out the bitterness in their heart one upon the other. 379

quarrelled, and scolded. They could do that in bed just as well, and save firing and light into the bargain.

So, at the first approach of darkness, the bed was made ready for Mr. Breklin, and his wife put to sleep their only, three-year-old child. Avremele did not understand why he was put to bed so early, but he asked no questions. The room began to feel cold, and the poor little thing was glad to nestle deep into the bedcoverings.

The lamp and the fire were extinguished, the stove would soon go out of itself, and the Breklin family slept.

They slept, and fought against poverty by lying in bed.

It was waging cheap warfare.

Having had his first sleep out, Breklin turns to his wife:

"What do you suppose the time to be now, Yudith?"

Yudith listens attentively.

"It must be past eight o'clock," she says.

"What makes you think so?" asks Breklin.

"Don't you hear the clatter of knives and forks? Well-to-do folk are having supper."

"We also used to have supper about this time, in the Tsisin," said Breklin, and he gave a deep sigh of longing.

"We shall soon forget the good times altogether," says Yudith, and husband and wife set sail once more for the land of dreams.

A few hours later Breklin wakes with a groan. 380 S. LIBIN

"What is the matter?" inquires Yudith.

"My sides ache with lying."

"Mine, too," says Yudith, and they both begin yawn- ing.

"What o'clock would it be now?" wonders Breklin, and Yudith listens again.

"About ten o'clock," she tells him.

"No later? I don't believe it. It must be a great deal later than that."

"Well, listen for yourself," persists Yudith, "and you'll hear the housekeeper upstairs scolding somebody. She's putting out the gas in the hall."

"Oi, weh is mir ! How the night drags !" sighs Brek- lin, and turns over onto his other side.

Yudith goes on talking, but as much to herself as to him :

"Upstairs they are still all alive, and we are asleep in bed."

"Weh is mir, weh is mir!" sighs Breklin over and over, and once more there is silence.

The night wears on.

"Are you asleep?" asks Breklin, suddenly.

"I wish I were ! Who could sleep through such a long night? I'm lying awake and racking my brains."

"What over?" asks Breklin, interested.

"I'm trying to think," explains Yudith, "what we can have for dinner to-morrow that will cost nothing, and yet be satisfying."

"Oi, weh is mir !" sighs Breklin again, and is at a loss what to advise.

"I wonder" (this time it is Yudith) "what o'clock it is now!" SLACK TIMES THEY SLEEP 381

"It will soon be morning," is Breklin's opinion.

"Morning? Nonsense!" Yudith knows better.

"It must be morning soon!" He holds to it.

"You are very anxious for the morning," says Yudith, good-naturedly, "and so you think it will soon be here, and I tell you, it's not midnight yet."

"What are you talking about? You don't know what you're saying ! I shall go out of my mind."

"You know," says Yudith, "that Avremele always wakes at midnight and cries, and he's still fast asleep."

"No, Mame," comes from under Arvemele's heap of rags.

"Come to me, my beauty! So he was awake after all!" and Yudith reaches out her arms for the child.

"Perhaps he's cold," says Breklin.

"Are you cold, sonny?" asks Yudith.

"Cold, Mame!" replies Avremele.

Yudith wraps the coverlets closer and closer round him, and presses him to her side.

And the night wears on.

"0 my sides!" groans Breklin.

"Mine, too!" moans Yudith, and they start another conversation.

One time they discuss their neighbors; another time the Breklins try to calculate how long it is since they married, how much they spend a week on an average, and what was the cost of Yudith's confinement.

It is seldom they calculate anything right, but talk- ing helps to while away time, till the basement begins to lighten, whereupon the Breklins jump out of bed, as though it were some perilous hiding-place, and set to work in a great hurry to kindle the stove. 25